This year, RainMakers Summer ‘08 will bring together the leaders in the mobile applications and wireless space. It will consist of a keynote speech, panel discussion and also a showcase/expo of start-ups and companies within the mobile applications and wireless industry. Click here to go to the RainMakers’ Website

Why Mobile & Wireless?

In recent years, the percentage of mobile phone and smartphone users has seen rapid growth. Coupled with the introduction of 3G and 4G wireless networks and the multi-tasking, mobility-centred lifestyle of the global citizen, more and more consumer services and functions are now able to be offered.

Yesterday, the cell phone was just for making phone calls… Today, we use it to surf the Internet, send e-mails and even pay our bills. As such, the mobile services industry presents a clear and present opportunity to be leveraged. Some burning topics that could be explored at RainMakers include:

• Is mobile convergence the way to go?
• What revenue models work for mobile applications?
• How to acquire customers / market share in the mobile applications space?
• What opportunites & challenges does the Asian (Singapore, China, India etc) mobile services market present for companies and start-ups?
• Is partnerships between mobile carriers the way to go for mobile application start-ups?
• How to overcome issues of standardisation of mobile operating systems and platforms?

Contact us

For more information about the conference, please contact us at rainmakers2008 [at] nusea [dot] org. Click here to go to the RainMakers’ Website

Being a competitive sportsman for the better part of my growing up years, the dream of competing at the Olympic Games was a natural one. Three knee injuries later, that dream has evolved to perhaps attending the Olympic Games (one that is firmly within my control).

TiE Con represented somewhat of a similar aura for the entrepreneur in me. Being there as an attendee this year can be likened to being a spectator at the Games. You are present; you can feel the atmosphere and recognize the importance to those battling to secure funding or connecting with speakers. But you somehow your life’s work does not hang in the balance like those ‘competing’.

I think my one-year here set me up decently well to work the crowd and to connect with speakers. But the contacts made – while extremely valuable would not be the highlight of TiECon for me.

Two speakers – both very aptly speaking as keynotes were what blew me away. The first was Naresh Goyal, Founder & CEO of Jet Airways. His story of going from a baggage handler in a small Indian airport to the owner of India’s first privately owned airline was truly inspirational. It might have happened in a different time, but his story was a clear reminder that success, in every definition of it, is a direct function of hard work and perseverance.

The other memorable speaker was John Wood, founder of “Room to Read”. “Room to Read” is a non-profit social enterprise that aims to bring literacy and learning to children in all the rural parts of the world. His goal is noble, like many others, but his methods and philosophy is truly exceptional and unlike any other I have seen. He believes in maximizing the donors’ dollar – more than 80% of donations go directly to the children (a staggeringly high statistic for a non-profit). More importantly, he believes these children need to be helped today and now. He answers to this belief by benchmarking his non-profit with one of the fastest expanding corporations in the world – Starbucks. In the last 3 years, “Room to Read” has opened more local language libraries around than world than Starbucks have opened coffee joints. How’s that for scalability and walking the talk? John reminded me of something I lost site of for a while – that one man can exact change in the world.

So while TiE Con was meant to be about contacts, business and understanding entrepreneurship better. It turned out to be so much more than that. It was about fanning the flames of passion and an awakening to closely held yet recently marginalized values in life.

Times are crazy but when the World starts spinning at its regular speed again, I do believe these lessons would be the ones I will carry with me through beyond my remaining time in the Valley.

Career choices - startup or large company?
It’s better to work for a company with a good brand name, because “if you don’t learn how to get things done, at least you learn how not to get things done.” Also, having a brand name on your resume builds a good track record when starting a company. It’s important to “raise VC funding from a position of strength,” and that is what a good track record provides. References from well-known companies, especially, have a lot of credibility.

On recruiting for startups
It’s difficult recruiting for startups. Gokul mentioned that the best people for startups are those who are willing to sacrifice cash for equity. To circumvent the problem, oursourcing is a good alternative. Though the cost of outsourcing is higher, it is offset by less time spent on managing and not having to deal with HR issues. It’s also the fastest way to get a product to market.

Speed is a vital issue. For Gokul, market research is not as important as identifying a problem and then quickly releasing a private beta to select users. Rapid iteration of the product based on feedback is a great way to get the product right.

The importance of public relations and brand-building.
Public relations are vital to the success of many great companies, including Apple and Google. In essence, it’s free advertising. Google’s various products are also launched with brand-building in mind.
On Google’s venture into offline advertising - is it a good move?
Effective advertising is based on targetting and measurement. While it is harder to target and measure in terms of traditional media, the use of digital TV is making it easier to target TV ads through set top boxes.

Radio and print is more difficult to measure and target due to the lack of interaction. However, using recording apparatus, it’s still possible to measure the reach of radio advertisements, which leads to better measurements.

Google wants to develop the tools that ad agencies use to measure ad effectiveness. As with Google Analytics which is used to make sense of traffic data to websites, similar tools can be made available to people to make sense of the data from their advertisements.

At the same time, there is still a huge opportunity for online advertising. A majority of search traffic from Google comes from outside the US.

Startup opportunity: For markets outside the US, ad networks can be built to represent international traffic on US sites. For example, an ad network in Asia can cut a deal with US-based websites to place ads for traffic coming for Asia.

What is the mindset to work at a startup?
For Gokul, it is much more important to prioritize and decide about what adds the most value. That requires a huge shift in mindset. For example, instead of having several meetings a week, Gokul cuts it down to a meeting every week instead. His advice, is to treat it like a marathon instead of a sprint - don’t burn out trying to do too much in too short a time.

Gokul also made the difference between getting things done, and doing things. At a startup with a limited budget, you have to do things yourself to get things done.

At the same time, there needs to be a process where you need to build trust with investors. Most importantly, make sure there is transparency so that if there is a change in direction for the company, the investors are fully prepared for the transition.

Social networks and advertising
Social networks have been a huge driver for time spent online, but advertising on social networks is a challenge because it is not intent-driven like search is. Creative e-commerce-focused applications will drive monetization.

On why Sun is giving away it’s software as open source

There are five reasons why making Sun’s software open source drives hardware sales, which is Sun’s core business

1. Zero barrier to entry for developers. Developers can create software for Solaris easily, which adds to the functionality and robustness of the OS.
2. Interoperability. Open source allows other software to run on Sun’s systems. For example, open source standards allows Microsoft’s .NET frameworks to be run on Sun’s servers. The increased flexibility offered by Sun’s hardware and open source software improves Sun’s product offering compared to proprietary software standards.
3. Lower R&D costs. Open sourcing it’s code allows Sun to save on software development R&D costs. Java ME, which is licensed under the GPL, would have cost Sun $2 billion to develop in house.
4. Security. Open sourcing allows for a more robust and secure code base for Sun’s software.
5. Eliminates barriers of exit for users. By using open sourcing Sun’s code, it’s easier for users to move from other platforms to SAlso, startups seldom have huge IT budgets, and using Sun’s enterprise hardware allows startups to reduce IT costs dramatically. As a result, Sun’s hardware is more cost effective for startups, which helps drive hardware sales.

With the Internet allowing information to be accessed almost anywhere in the world, the local state is increasing dangerous: the network IS the computer. And opensourcing allows Sun to tap into that trend.

On Leadership
“To grow as fast as we did, we were making mistakes left and right.”

There should always be a balance between grey hair and black hair in a startup, because experienced people are sometimes blindsided by past experiences, and make bad strategic decisions.

Decisive execution, especially when you hire people to make decisions. That means not being afraid to let people go if they are not making good decisions for the company. Never be afraid to ask prima donnas to leave the company, because “people will thank you for it.”

When bad things happen, who takes the blame for it? The key is to be open, transparent and courageous. That means owning up to mistakes, and doing things to make them right.

Create an environment where people feel trusted. People should be able to work with integrity, and not be afraid of telling the truth.

Dealing with people with a velvet glove is important. “Anger no one”, and make friends instead of enemies. That means being gentle with people whom you have to let go. When dealing with errant employees and executives, it’s important to be firm but fair. It’s better to move them to another position in the company and give them a second chance if they want to stay.

On future computing trends
Computers will be increasingly replaced by access devices. With computers becoming increasingly networked and users becoming more mobile, there will be less need for full computers. Instead, mobile computing platforms will become more prevalent.

There is no privacy. Get over it. At the same time, you can be anonymous.

Don’t bet against bandwidth. Future applications will require more bandwidth, and infrastructure will support that.

On character and Life’s most important decisions
Stay grounded. Only by doing so, you can keep your success and failures in perspective. If you allow your ego to take control, you can make some really bad mistakes.

Marriage - “if you’re going to get married, you may as well be in love.” When people get married, they keep forgetting that nothing is perfect. A good marriage is when you can see past the flaws and love the other person.

The most important character traits of a successful person is Courage to do the right things, Intelligence and Smartness, Integrity, and Fairness. Also, you must be physically capable to do your work well.

On how to become a leader
Ask yourself, “why do you like working with someone?”, then distill the answers. Most importantly, trust your gut.

Into our humble NOC office, in walk a seasoned and accomplished VC, the Vish Mishra  to meet up with young aspiring entreprenuers. From the start of the session, all our nervousness melted away because Vish was all fired up to share the perils and joys of starting a venture.  So here began our practical lessons:

1) Venture capital activity is highest in USA concentrating in the Silicon Valley. Here are the statistics:

$28 billion in US, $5 billion in Europe, $1 billion in India, $2 billion in Israel

This is a measure of entrepreneurial activities.

2) Characteristics of an entrepreneur:

- risk taking,  wants to serve 1 set of customers very well, think global, able to build a team with complementary sets of skills

3) Some advice to succeed:

- Be passionate about an industry and do something really, really well - you need to be a deep domain expert to build your credibility as a young entrepreneur. Talk to experts and many customers of the pain that you are solving.

- Pick the  best people who know more than you do

- Big pain that is not served well = Big idea

- Bringn mentors or lawyers when you pitch

4) Before you marry with a VC, make sure you proof that there is a pain. Then write the story (business plan) then the only a VC will value your business.

5) Stay where your customers are. If they are in China, go to China.

6) It doesn’t really matter if you have low valuation, the key is to build your business. Higher valuation is a result of a good business executed. He repeated “Build your business”.

7) Common mistakes:

- Founders overbelieve their value proposition. Is the problem real?

- Ppl buy solutions, not technology. So focus on making a solution, not just a long list of useless specs of a product.

- Share.

- Getting the wrong people. Be honest and upright and you will attract similar people.

To this inspiring man, thank you .

I attended the panel discussion on Investment opportunities and strategies.

The panel includes VC, private equity investor, entrepreneur and consultant, all with many years’ experience in the China market.

The panel discussed the rapid growth of the Chinese economy and the trend of it decomposing from the US and Europe economy due to China’s increasing domestic consumption.

They shared insights on the investment opportunities in the China market. In recent years, while the overall foreign investment in China is increasing, the number of US and European investments is decreasing. Besides foreign investments, China’s domestic investment pool is large and growing. In big cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Suzhou, entrepreneurs can get local investor funding of around 100million RMB easily.

For foreign companies that are considering expansion into China market or entrepreneurs who want to start a business in China, they need to consider the newly published property laws, labor laws and other government regulations.

The panel also discussed the growing trend of investing on consumer product. VC firms are still focusing on investing in high-tech companies rather than consumer product companies because of the higher ROI high-tech companies generate. They consider entry barrier seriously, which can be either technical excellence or network effect. Compared to VCs, private equity funds are more interested in consumer product, because their typical expected ROI is 3 to 5 times while VCs are looking for ROI of about 20 times.

There was some miscommunication that led to a delay in the mentorship session, but that did not deter Salman Ullah from sharing his thoughts from a wide variety of topics. From being the Vice-President of Corporate Development in Google and having his own investment firm (Merus Capital) now, Salman has much experience to speak of for our benefit. My first impressions of him were that he is witty with his comments, and he has a deft ability to give concise answers to our questions. It was not only the content that we could learn from, but also his charismatic style of delivery that made me be in awe of him.

Amongst the numerous questions that we had for Salman (inclusive the impending merger between Microsoft and Yahoo!), the topic that stuck with me most was about the cross comparison of culture between Google and other huge IT-related companies. There is a public perception that there is a gulf in culture and practices between the ‘uber-cool’ Google and the ‘evil’ Microsoft. As Salman explained it, there is really no significant difference in the working patterns for both companies due to their sizes. When a company reaches critical mass, there is a need to have a structured organisation for the company to run efficiently. Google is not any much different from the other companies in this aspect. It is radically different from the start-up companies which we are all working in. At the discretion of the CEO, the company can change its direction and head towards the goal. Large companies, no matter efficient they are, will take time to realign itself when the focus is changed. Agreeing with that, I felt so fortunate to be working at such a dynamic workplace, and the size and reputation of the company does not matter to me anymore…

- Andy Teo, 13th Batch

Thoughts of a newcomer to the Valley.

One of the best things of being in the Valley is the rare opportunity to interact with people, entrepreneurs who have been there/done that, on a personal level and to learn from their experiences. And in a quaint coffee shop in downtown Mountain View on a wintery March afternoon, we did just that.

Role of a Product Manager
The topic of discussion for the day was Making a Career out of Product Management: Opportunities and Best Practices. So what exactly does it mean to manage a product? Product managers are a special breed of people. Essentially, they are charged with bringing the product to life: from concept to reality. The Product Manager is intricately and intimately involved in every single detail and with that, brings with it different challenges and required skills.

Outward Looking vs Inward Looking
As product managers, one of the key challenges faced is finding a balance between the issues of dealing with external business and marketing needs and handling the engineering and creative teams. Are you a more outward looking manager that focuses heavily on the business development aspect of your product or one that builds strong relationships with the engineering team? As with many things in life, there is no best way. Product managers with different styles have succeeded in creating great products. The best product managers understand this need and embrace it completely

There’s no I in T E A M
This extremely over-used cliché rings true, especially in product management. As a product manager, you are a team leader, a consensus builder. Between the inevitable complaints from the engineers that what you want done is impossible and the requests from the marketing department for a flashier product, you need to find a middle ground. At the same time, you want to make the impossible happen: to create a product that will change the world. How exactly do you do that? Communicate, communicate, communicate. Managing your team and their expectations and most importantly, bring out the best in them. Succeeding as a team only makes success all so much sweeter.

Here are the lessons that anyone interested in product development should be thinking about :-

Judgement/ Decision Making -
It is inevitable that as a product manager you would be faced with hard challenges. And problems would not have a clear solution. At times like those, the product manager has to consider many factors like externalities, team feedback, economics, etc and has to make the decision. It seemed to me that making such trade-offs or judgement calls is more an art than a science.

Leading with influence rather than authority -
Good product managers build personal rapports and credibility over time with their teams. They invest not only in the products but in people as well. I am fortunate to have people in my office who lead with influence and  I am proud to work with them.

Always Over-communicate -
It seems very obvious but sometimes overlooked, meetings are the heart beats of a company. All meetings should be documented and there always should be objectives behind having a meeting, list of action items after having the meeting.

When I first heard about the ABC 2008, I thought it would be the perfect fit for what I am trying to achieve here in the Valley - get a global perspective on successfully doing business in Asia.

It came at the end of an extremely intense period of finals, case competitions and the like. But it was well worth the trip up to Berkeley on last Saturday afternoon.

I missed the morning sessions but heard the Keynote by Stephen Pratt, CEO of Infosys Consulting, was extremely insightful. I think it would be useful to find out if transcripts or recordings of the session are available online.

The second keynote by Laura Tyson, Professor at Haas, was much more than what I expected (and I expected a lot!!). She provided an amazing analysis of how China and India are shaping as business and investment opportunities.

Some keypoints I pulled out of Dr. Tyson’s session include:

1. China vs India’s Growth
China has been a great investment opportunity not only because of their double digit growth, but the fact it has sustained this growth for close to 30 years. When compared to India, who really only started its push toward this new phase of economic development in the 1990s, it had a good 15-20 years head start.

2. Concerns with China’s Economy
Dr. Tyson pointed out that China does have some fundamental concerns related to the political situation as well as it huge over dependence on trade, and particular trade with the US.

China’s trade balance surplus with the US has been likened to each (poor) Chinese lending every (rich) American about US$4000. Now that’s something to ponder over, huh?

Check out this article that is related to it: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200801/fallows-chinese-dollars

The currency controls also means that the Yuan is severely under valued at this point. A good opportunity to invest in the RMB, maybe?

Check out also:

- “China as a Fragile Superpower” the book by Susan Shirk

3. Cisco’s Decision to Base its “East HQ” in India

Recently, Cisco opened it’s Globalisation Center East in Bangalore, India. In discussing Cisco reasons for picking India over China to situate this state-of-the-art facility, Dr, Tyson framed nicely the competitive advantage India seems to have over India. They include:

- India being the largest free-market democracy
The fact that India transition so seamlessly through a rather unexpected elections turnout really underscored the health of democracy and socio-political climate (albeit its many other issues) in India. This truly lends for stability and investor confidence.

- large skilled & English-speaking talent pool
India’s ’subsidiary official language’ is English and the urban workforce is very proficient in the language. Coupled with the technical education of the Indian institutions makes this very appealing to tech companies like Cisco.

- reasonable IP protection system & courts that are active (to some extent)
One big draw back China had for Cisco (and other research intensive companies) is its poor IP/copyright protection infrastructure. This is a relative strength for India. Also, the judicial system and presence of courts to file for action against IP violations in India also lends to a perceived lower risk of investment

- a growing middle class of more than 100m (still not where China is though)

Challenges for India included it’s poor physical infrastructure, the fact that 70% of its population are still rural, the more pronounced poverty situation and the restrictive labour laws.

All in all, the ABC 2008 was a very engaging and enriching session with its relevant speakers and panel sessions. It is definitely an event I feel should be on NUSEA’s calendar every year.

I also picked up a prospectus for the Haas MBA…So that’s a new possibility in itself too.